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“We can’t expect Mrs. Proctor accept what they’re offering!” David stood, resting the knuckles of both hands on the top of the conference table for emphasis. “And I’m not backing off!” He turned his attention to the window, away from his assistant, Shirley, and the partners, all three of them, Oneida, Michael and Steve, who waited in deference for their senior partner to draw his conclusions. David Bannerstrom was sixty-five today, and could announce his retirement at any moment. That seemed to be the consensus of hope, anyway.

A chair squeaked as someone shifted weight. A drinking glass tinked against the edge of a pitcher as someone else poured. Ahem. Slight cough. David waited out the small wave of impatience, looking down to the street two floors below, to the pink truck with the cupcakes painted on the side, to the man getting out with a big pink box and balloons, disappearing under the awning and into the building. David’s heart picked up pace. He sensed his timing was perfect, so he turned to face the team, “And so we will sue Northside Plumbing on behalf of Mrs. Proctor!”

This was the moment David expected the singing to start–the door would open, Tricia, Pat, Mary and Chuck would appear with the now infamous office party delivery man. This had been the year of cupcake birthdays all over the building and it was always this pink truck, always this guy, cupcakes for everyone, candles glowing. This kind gesture would confirm David’s sense that he should stay with the firm a few more years. But the door stayed shut and the partners said, respectively, “Good!” “Fine!” “Agreed!” Shirley glided her finger across the tablet to move onto the next order of business.

“The Ulster Upholsterers will be bringing in their sewing workers tomorrow at 11,” Shirley said, “and we all need to do some research tonight. I’m sending you all links to the files now…”

David felt his stomach growl. He had skipped lunch to make room for cake in the afternoon. “What is the gist of the claim?” he asked.

Talking sounded like rubber balls bouncing down empty hallways. It sounded like a Doppler effected bad guitar chord. It sounded like wind in trees. It sounded like his stomach growling.

“…Isn’t it better that way, Dave?” Michael said, looking to him as they all fell silent.

“Yes,” David said, not knowing what he was affirming. “Write it up and send it so I can look at all the angles.” His decision was made. He would end the meeting early. “That’s it,” he said. “I’m done.”

And he walked out of the board room, down the low pile green carpet to his office to get his coat, scarf and briefcase. Leaving the office door open, he headed for the elevator, pushed the button and waited. The doors opened. He stepped in. The doors closed. He pushed 1 and put on his coat.

On the first floor, the doors opened to the sound of somebody else’s office singing, “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow!” David Bannerstrom nodded as he passed the open office doors, pushing through the revolving door to the cold winter sun of late afternoon.

Upstairs, Tricia, Pat, Mary and Chuck burst into the board room, “We can’t find the cupcake guy!” The partners and Shirley hovered in the moment that had just passed; they turned toward Tricia, Pat, Mary and Chuck.

Downstairs, outside, David walked past the pink cupcake truck. The roll-up door was up and an open box of cupcakes was within view. He did not look left. He did not look right. He saw a Red Velvet and he took it, sunk his teeth past the cream cheese frosting and into the cake and moaned a satisfied groan.

At the first floor, the elevator doors opened. Tricia, Pat, Mary and Chuck burst out, rushing through the lobby, filing into and through the revolving door and out. Inside, at that first floor office, the melody resolved, “…which nobody can denyyyy!” to laughter and applause. The cupcake guy, passing out joy as cupcakes and ready to hand off the balloon bouquet said, “So: which one of you lucky guys is David Bannerstrom?”

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The jigsaw was too loud for Gregory to hear the doorbell, the knock, or the pounding, but when he finished the last set of curlicues he glanced up to the monitor to see a young woman at the door holding a brown paper bag. He switched off the saw and the whirring slow-hummed to a stop. He snatched his cigar from the edge of a sawhorse as he started through the house, taking a puff and blowing out the smoke before opening the front door.

Teresa waved her hand in front of her face and winced a little, but tried to act unaffected as she caught the smell of cigar smoke mixed with sawdust. She couldn’t hide looking a little glum. “Canton Dragon?”

Gregory reached into his pocket and pulled out his wallet, then fingered through some bills and handed her a twenty.

“What’s gotcha down?” he said.

“Oh my friends’ new band is at this club and everybody’s going and I didn’t say anything soon enough so I’m the one working.”

“I thought restaurant people always wanted Saturday nights.”

“We usually do. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t complain to the customers. I’m sorry.”

“Here then,” he said pulling out a ten to add to the sum as he took the bag, “Night’s not a total loss.”

“Wow, thank you!” she said suspending motion a moment, “Are you sure? I wasn’t trying to–?”

He waved her off and she backed and turned away walking. Short of closing the door he called after her, “Sometimes you don’t fight for something and you get something good anyway. Just remember that. They’ll play again and you’ll have a few bucks in your pocket.”

“I hope.”

“Nothing’s an end in itself, you’ll get more chances,” he said with a wave, looking down with a smile, closing the door.

He served himself up a plate, put the containers in the refrigerator and went into the workshop to eat while contemplating the chair he was crafting. It was all put together except for the backrest which he was carefully carving with curlicues. “Curlicues,” he muttered prodding through the shrimp to pick out cashews. “Ma baby loves the curlicues…”

She would be home in three more days. The chair would be waiting for her in the living room, polished smooth and inviting. He imagined her relaxing in it, reading a book, listening to music, talking with him about the road. She’d tell about the triumphs, keep the spin upbeat. He’d avoid lines of questioning that turned toward the the dreams she once had for herself because now they’d just just stiffen her spirit, but he’d listen to the melody in her storytelling, his reactions cutting a fine line, carefully coiling his end of the conversation hoping she would recognize she was marvelous beyond her vocation. He hoped she would hear her own voice the way he heard it, like honey and velvet, riot and outrage, soul and simmer and sexuality.

As usual she’d leave the tedium out of the tales, avoid the subject of whether the price was worth the cost of long absences from home and distance from where she wanted to be. She’d minimize the long drives, the bad motels, the cramped van, the drunk audiences, the deaf sound mixers and the slightly sour feeling she’d get looking out on the crowd to realize most of them weren’t even listening, too young to appreciate a Heart tribute band.

> Yes! Get off at Stanley and Bronco. There’s a restaurant, Thai Faboso. I’ll meet you 6:30.

> Okay

> Okay! I’m happy! It restarted- seems fine now.

> Oh. well okay.

>> So see you Monday then.

> No! Tonight! I said I’m happy cuz you finally said YES!

> That’s good

>>> that your computer’s okay i mean.

> oh yeah that. What’s good is I’m happy about YOU!

> 🙂

Through the window of the bus, Monica watched the people hurrying against a slight chill in the air, warm lights coming on in storefronts and restaurants. She felt herself smile a little, listening to her thoughts: “What’s good is I’m happy, about you.”

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Johnnie’s back garden faces the back of the mall. He’s got a bench and table set up and he makes candles back there. Five pots on hot plates brew a variety of colors of melted wax, and he dips and hangs the candles to cool by twos on an umbrella-style clothesline. It’s about 4pm and by now it looks like a magical tree in the early dusk of December. He’s got several boxes loaded with more candles stacked ready to go somewhere.

Across a short vacant lot past his chain link fence he can see some of the stores’ exits. Employees appear from doorways to take their breaks, most enmesh with their phones, but there is one woman who comes out to gaze at the sky. She ponders the blues and greys watching for high flying birds and daydreams. She wears a white apron and slaps puffs of white from it as she comes out. Whatever her mood, happy, neutral, frustrated or animated the clouds of dust fly and as they dissipate all else seems to settle in deference to the captivating sky.

Johnnie’s lived a good life, “a full life,” the well-meaning nurse told him as he left the hospital after his last round of chemo. His quiet decision was that it was the final treatment. Maybe at 80 it was okay to admit defeat gracefully instead of spiraling through medically inflicted belly aches, stiff joints, dry mouth, aching bones and chemo-brain only to meet with the same end a few months farther down the line. He would hope to fade, just not wake up one day.

But watching that woman come out of the bakery evoked a desire to be alive, to fail to give up, to accept, along with the grief, savoring life. She looked to be half his age, and he knew a crush was folly but he imagined what it would be like to dance with her. Maybe kiss. Okay, maybe get her pregnant. He’d meet his maker too soon; it would be nice to leave a little progeny behind.

Rhea shoved her phone into her pocket but it slipped into a bowl of flour and vanished in a soft puff of hushing. She reached in, took out the phone, blew the surface clean and tried for the pocket again, this time with success. A foot on the trashbin pedal and in went the contaminated flour. She tramped out the back door cursing beneath her thoughts about how she was too weak to say no to hosting Christmas yet again, that hosting her kids’ friends and families was overkill but that making “room at the inn” was the proper Christmas response and she had no choice. She may have muttered, “Jimminy Christmas…” as she walked into the light of day, slapping flour out of her apron, agitation out of her soul, captivated by a blue sky too infinitely open to keep her mood down.

She saw the old man in his backyard again, the steaming pots, the clothesline of dangling colors, and of course the long pauses where he’d just stare in her direction; she’d pretend she couldn’t see that far and it seemed to work. She set her gaze on the sky and watched for birds.

Johnnie turned toward his house. A man in uniform approached from the side gate with a cart. They shook hands and loaded the boxes onto the cart. “Thanks for picking these up, Santos,” he said, “You’re a lifesaver.”

“Johnnie we sell these too cheap. For godsakes I’m SanTOS, not SanTA! People will pay what they’re worth.”

“They’re candles, they cost about 40 cents a piece to make, five bucks for two is already asking too much.”

“You’re not adding in the time and energy you spend,” Santos said.

“I like it out here,” said Johnnie turning toward the mall. “Look. She’s pacing. Something’s bothering her today.”

“Christmas,” Santos said. “When I stopped by the bakery on my rounds today her teenagers were in there nagging about something –showed up as soon as they got off school. And she’s trying to keep them in line and some guy walks off with a cake he doesn’t even pay for! That’s the spirit of Christmas nowadays. Tis the season for me having to chase down idiots.”

“That’s why we sell the candles so cheap, Santos. People need gifts they can afford,” Johnnie said. “Pick me up Saturday at five for the swap meet?”

“Saturday. Five A-M. You want me to mention to her that we have a booth? I can bring you a cupcake.”

“Yeah, be SanTA, Santos. Bring me a cupcake,” Johnnie said. He smiled and loved how it felt to do so.

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“That’s Oh Ess. Sant-OS”. He peered at me belligerently down his long thin nose, through the heavy rimmed glasses. Two black eyebrows, meshed across the top. Long spidery fingers tapping on the thin cardboard folder holding his CV and references.

“Yes, indeed. So I see, Mr. Santos. And may I ask which vacancy are you here for today, sir?” Another glare, daring me to pass comment. He drew himself up to his full height, clearing his throat. I could feel the blush, rising inexorably up my neck.

“I submitted an application for the Retail Security Operative position that was advertised in the Crawnforth Gazette”. Each capital letter carefully enunciated, to emphasise the obvious gravitas of the position. “I applied in early September; I must say I was somewhat disappointed not to receive your invitation to interview until late November”. Another cannonade from the spiny finger tips.

“Indeed, Mr. Santos, and I apologise, of course. It appears there may have been a certain…” Breathe. Swallow. Think from the diaphram. “A certain administrative misunderstanding within the human resources system. But we are so fortunate that you have been able to attend for an interview today, and I do hope the delay hasn’t inconvenienced you at all”. And breathe again. I could feel the full incandescence of the blush burning in my cheeks. “Do take a seat Mr. Santos, and the interview panel will see you shortly”.

On the home straight now, I allowed my clenched facial muscles to relax a little. He turned, and haughtily eyed the single remaining seat. He folded in his elbows, and slid his spindly frame into the letterbox gap left in the row of rotund, bearded gentlemen. Suddenly, I recalled a pressing and most urgent need to visit the stationary cupboard.

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You can trace his methodical progress, step by shaky step. He’s always been a determined old bugger, my granddad Johnnie. The trail starts on the bedside table, the bedtime slot in the pillbox full of last night’s tablets, just where the last carer left them for him, untouched. The bed guards are still up; the catches must have been too fiddly for his arthritic fingers, and you can see the scrunched blankets where he shuffled down to the foot of the bed and turned onto his stomach to lower himself to the floor. His emergency alarm hangs off the bedpost, no more assistance required. A few unsteady steps to the walking frame, stowed in the alcove out of the way since his last fall.

The peg on the back of his door holds a crumbled medical gown, abandoned in favour of the much-loved threadbare brown dressing gown. Scratches on the door frame recount an argument with the recalcitrant walking frame, and the skewed hall table tells a similar story. A discarded potato masher lies in the centre of the kitchen floor, incongruous until I spot the floral tin with the spare door key, dented from its undignified retrieval from the top shelf. The key swinging from the lock, door still ajar.

Outside, the frame sits abandoned at the point it became a liability, at the bottom of the steps he hasn’t managed to ascend in more than a year. Once he’d conquered his Everest, he must have perched on the garden wall for a rest. A barren winter patio pot has sprouted a couple of hated cannulas, their colourful tops poking up like crocus buds. And then onward down the path, footprints in the snow merging into a jumbled groove as his tired feet began to drag.

I know where I will find him; right down at the bottom, out from under the trees with a clear view of the sky. His face has a knowing peace, without the pain and the bedbound frustration. I know I should call someone, but not yet. I lay down on my back next to him, just like we did when I was a child. Thinking back; a winter evening, last night he must have seen Orion march proudly overhead. Now the dawn is already bleaching the sky, but the morning star, Venus, hangs on the horizon. I lay back, holding his hand, and together we watch it rise slowly over the shed.

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Ruben wanted to see the tropics but could only afford Florida. For a six month sabbatical from his job teaching digital manipulation at Camptor Community College in South Dakota, he took local work to make spending money and was happy to get a little gig his first week in Tampa. His task: Photoshop an office party picture. Close open jacket, cover a grease stain on a necktie, and remove an undesirable from the background–a woman whose head appeared to be sprouting out of the shoulder of the CEO of Uubershopps’ Florida chain, Rance Hunksacker. Rubin didn’t ask much, 100 bucks an hour with a one hour minimum. This job took him twenty minutes.

Within 24 hours he was asked to put the undesirable back into the picture. It was a no-brainer since he saved drafts, but he knew Uubershopps could afford another hundred so he said it had taken “some time” to do the job and presented his invoice to Hunksacker’s assistant Barbara, kind of excited to be making two hundred for twenty minutes’ work. It had turned out the “undesirable” was Hunksacker’s wife, Eloise. When Barbara called to ask Ruben to put Eloise Hunksacker back she said it was “because she was laughing,” and pretty, and “looked so happy.”

So Ruben sent a new image with Ms Hunksacker back in place.

So when Eloise Hunksacker would, several days later, turn up missing, along with Rance Hunsacker’s Picasso, Ruben would become a focal point of the case. His work would become Exhibits A and B at the trial, testaments to the “fact, exhibit A!” that Eloise Hunksacker, “failed to appear at the party the night of the theft!” And of course “exhibit B! Her image was Photoshopped into the picture to make it look like she was there!” Ruben was characterized as an accomplice, for having “pasted her into the picture, and poorly at that,” the prosecuting attorney turning on his heel toward the jury, pointing at the picture and declaring, “the head is out of proportion!”

Of course the dates on the files should have cleared him but he saved on flash drives because he didn’t trust the cloud. He kept the drives on a key ring, color coded, this one red, and the red one had disappeared the night he met Jillian for coffee, a tantalizing twenty-something artsy hipster who made him forget he was a forty year old man as he chatted her up, she fondling his key ring of flash drives. He had left the table to get a lemon square to share and when he came back she was gone, the ring of drives remained, but the red one was gone.

State your name and occupation for the court please, the lawyer said. “Barbara Fulsom, Assistant to the CEO, Mr. Rance Hunksacker.” The questions would travel the predictable trajectories, who what where when how, and then came why: “Because Ms Eloise Hunksacker was in love with him!” she said, pointing to Ruben who reflexively looked over his shoulder for the accused, but there was no one behind him.

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